Saturday, January 19, 2008

As we go into the last Brass month, I find my Green Bay Yoopers in a tough race with New York. How appropriate is that? My hometown Packers host the NY Giants tomorrow on the "Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field. It is freezing around here. As much as I love baseball, I am into football as well, and coached it for 15 seasons. I even started and manage a Packer Fan message board and go to training camp practices in summer.

Enough about football. I have been reading a lot about prospects lately. Who do you guys see as a better prospect, Buchholz or Chamberlain? Just curious.

The trade I made where I parted with Pena and netted Carmona was huge for me this past month in the pennant race. I went 11-3 on the road, 9-5 at home. But Punto gave me the ability to sit both Hall and Hunter ten games and still have a quality player there. And Otsuka has been huge in the pen for me, many quality innings in an area I was running short. And Cordero will close for me on the road this month. Jenks has eight innings left, so I will use him at home.

I like this blog site! I hope it will be used. Good luck to all in the pennant and wildcard chases.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

By one vote, Duluth-Superior is the favorite to win the 2007-08 BRASS title. I'm sure Mike is ecstatic about his chances. But you know, defending champ Cream City is only 40+ games out ... the Pirates could rally yet.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Why not go to a single table in BRASS ala European soccer leagues? We already play a completely balanced schedule. To wit: everyone in the league plays their divisional opponents only 22 games total. That is a paltry amount to declare a "division champ" from.

Therefore, I think we should just meld the honest simplicity of our schedule with one table and seed the playoffs accordingly- across all of BRASS.

Aside from the fact that Cameron, even at the age of 35, will be an upgrade defensively in centerfield, here are some other numbers that I find a little frightening (having a day or two to think about it).

Cameron's lefty vs. righty splits: He hit .222 vs righties, managed a sub-.300 on base average, with a Matilda-like slugging percentage of .402 -- OPS of .700. Yikes. Considering 72% of his plate appearances occurred against righties, the potential for a dreary season is good.

Cameron did play in a very pitcher-friendly park (Petco) and his numbers are correspondingly dismal and almostidenticalto his righty splits. The away numbers are a bit better: .254 BA, .341 OBA, .449 SLG and .790 OPS. Still not great, though.

These numbers should frighten anyone. They are his post all-star numbers. Anyone see a downward trend: .213 BA, .332 OBA, .410 SLG and .742 OPS.

Again, the only real positive is he's signed in reality for only one year, and fairly cheaply. Plus, the defense in centerfield will be improved. I suppose he could bat 7th ahead of Kendall, though those bottom three spots are going to hurt the overall attack.